Academic

Research Interests

My primary research interests are in computational systems biology, particularly the modelling and simulation of complex systems and networks. Presently, I am quite interested in understanding the design principles of biological systems through multi-scale computational modelling/theoretical studies, and how a knowledge of these principles can be exploited in applications such as synthetic biology. I am also interested in the application of complex network science to various disciplines, in and outside biology.

My PhD involved the modelling and simulation of (myco)bacterial metabolism, metabolic networks and protein--protein interactions, to identify better drug targets for tuberculosis. I have also modelled of the human immune system and its interaction with mycobacteria. During my post-doc, I have studied the robustness and evolvability of biological systems (TOR signalling), as well as artificial systems (programmable hardware).

Post-doctoral Research

I completed my post-doctoral research at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Zurich, in the lab of Prof. Andreas Wagner. My research mainly concerned the analysis of the evolvability and robustness of biological networks, particularly yeast signal transduction networks. I have also looked at the robustness and evolvability of an artificial system, namely programmable hardware.

Presented a review on “DNA Analytical Methods for Detection of Transgenic Organisms” at Anna University, Chennai on the event of Biotechcellence 2003, a national-level symposium on biotechnology (2003)